The Weaver Of Magic

Weave cunningly the web
Of twilight, O thou subtle-fingered Eve!
And at the slow day's ebb
With small blue stars the purple curtain weave.
If any wind there be,
Bid it but breathe lightly as woodland violets o'er the sea;
If any moon, be it no more than a white fluttering feather.
Call the last birds together.

O Eve, and let no wisp
Of day's distraction thine enchantment mar;
Thy soft spell lisp
And lure the sweetness down of each blue star.
Then let that low moan be
A while more easeful, trembling remote and strange, far oversea;
So shall the easeless heart of love rest then, or only sigh,
Hearing the swallows cry!

John Frederick Freeman

John Frederick Freeman was a British poet, notable as a Georgian poet. He was born in London and worked initially as an office boy and later as a clerk before gaining recognition for his poetic works. Freeman primarily wrote about nature, identity, and the human condition. Over the course of his literary career, he published several books of poetry, and his works were praised for their sincerity and technical excellence. His notable collections include 'Presage of Victory' and 'Stone Trees.'

John Frederick Freeman

Hector

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Sleeping Sea

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Flute

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Valley

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English

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Fair Eve

Fair Eve, as fair and still
As fairest thought, climbs the high sheltering hill;
As still and fair
As the white cloud asleep in the deep air.

As cool, as fair and cool,
As starlight swimming in a lonely pool;
Subtle and mild
As through her eyes the soul looks of a child.

A linnet sings and sings,
A shrill swift cleaves the air with blackest wings;
White twinkletails
Run frankly in their meadow as day fails.

On such a night, a night
That seems but the full sleep of tired light,
I look and wait
For what I know not, looking long and late.

Is it for a dream I look,
A vision from the Tree of Heaven shook,
As sweetness shaken
From the fresh limes on lonely ways forsaken?

A dream of one, maybe,
Who comes like sud...

John Frederick Freeman

The Weaver.

All day, all day, round the clacking net
The weaver's fingers fly:
Gray dreams like frozen mists are set
In the hush of the weaver's eye;
A voice from the dusk is calling yet,
"Oh, come away, or we die!"

Without is a horror of hosts that fight,
That rest not, and cease not to kill,
The thunder of feet and the cry of flight,
A slaughter weird and shrill;
Gray dreams are set in the weaver's sight,
The weaver is weaving still.

"Come away, dear soul, come away, or we die;
Hear'st thou the moan and the rush! Come away;
The people are slain at the gates, and they fly;
The kind God hath left them this day;
The battle-axe cleaves, and the foemen cry,
And the red swords swing and slay."

"Nay, wife, what boots it to fly from pain,
When p...

Archibald Lampman

Nightfall

I


Eve goes slowly
Dancing lightly
Clad with shadow up the hills;
Birds their singing
Cease at last, and silence
Falling like fine rain the valley fills.

Not a bat's cry
Stirs the stillness
Perfect as broad water sleeping,
Not a moth's wings
Flit in the gathering darkness,
Not a mouselike moonray ev'n comes creeping.

Then a light shines
From the casement,
Wreathed with jasmine boughs and stars,
Palely golden
As the late eve's primrose,
Glimmers through green leafy prison bars.



II


Only joy now
Come in silence,
Come before your look's forgot;
Come and hearken
While the lonely shadow
Broadens on the hill and then is not.

Now the hour is,
Here the plac...

John Frederick Freeman

Wonder

Following upon the faint wind's fickle courses
A feather drifts and strays.
My thought after her thought
Floated--how many ways and days!

She swayed me as the wind swayeth a feather.
I was a leaf upon
Her breath, a dream within
Her dream. The dream how soon was done!

For now all's changed, not Time's change more wondrous,
I am her sun, and she
(Herself doth swear) the moon;
Or she the ship upon my sea.

How should this be? I know not; I so grossly
Mastering her spirit pure.
O, how can her bird's breast
My nervous and harsh hand endure?

Tell me if this be love indeed, fond lovers,
That high stoop to low,
Soul be to flesh subdued;
That the sun around the earth should go?

I know not: I but know that love is misery,...

John Frederick Freeman

Evening Beauty: Blackfriars

Nought is but beauty weareth, near and far,
Under the pale, blue sky and lonely star.
This is that quick hour when the city turns
Her troubled harsh distortion and blind care
Into brief loveliness seen everywhere,
While in the fuming west the low sun smouldering burns.

Not brick nor marble the rich beauty owns,
Not this is held in starward-pointing stones.
Sun, wind and smoke the threefold magic stir,
Kissing each favourless poor ruin with kiss
Like that when lovers lovers lure to bliss,
And earth than towered heaven awhile is heavenlier.

Tall shafts that show the sky how far away!
The thousand-window'd house gilded with day
That fades to night; the arches low, the streamer
Everywhere of the ruddy'd smoke.... Is aught
Of loveliness so rich e'er sol...

John Frederick Freeman

Foreboding

O linger late, poor yellow whispering leaves!
As yet the eves
Are golden and the simple moon looks through
The clouds and you.
O linger yet although the night be blind,
And in the wind
You wake and lisp and shiver at the stir
And sigh of her
Whose rimy fingers chill you each and all:
And so you fall
As dead as hopes or dreams or whispered vows....
O then the boughs
That bore your busy multitude shall feel
The cold light steal
Between them, and the timorous child shall start,
Hearing his heart
Drubbing affrighted at the frail gates, for lo,
The ghostly glow
Of the wild moon, caught in the barren arms
Of leafless branches loud with night's alarms!

John Frederick Freeman